


And Honour Slew Reason

by deathwailart



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 05:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Ned Stark character study written for a friend.  Set after he leaves Winterfell but before he arrives in Kings Landing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Honour Slew Reason

He comes from a long line of good men, of strong men, of men with ice and winter running through their veins who carry their house words the way their sigil's howls echo through the great tall pines of vast expanse beyond the wall. Men with anvil jaws and conviction. Builders and soldiers. Men with purpose. Men who know what it is to do what must be done by the sweat of their brows and the strength of their backs. The North is as hard as the Iron Islands. But in the North, in Winterfell, they wield honour like a crutch when everything lies broken around them or a suit of mail to shield them from what is hurled their way.   
  
It's hard to explain it to someone else who doesn't know what it is to abide by a code. Even knights don't always know, something he has tried to tell Sansa with her head in the clouds but he still wants her to be a girl, to enjoy it while it lasts. She doesn't have many more years before she'll be a woman. None of them do. In the North they grow up faster. Winter is with them always and it hits them first and hardest so they have to be ready for a life that demands and that cannot be put off. After winter Rickon will join him, standing and watching and learning what it means to be not just a man but to be a _just_ man.  
  
If he's back from Kings Landing then. He hopes he'll be back with his family. Able to go to the Wall and see Jon, to talk about Jon's mother the way he said he would. He'd hoped it'd give the lad something to hold on to. Ned isn't from the Wall, his blood doesn't run black but Benjen is his brother, Benjen is the First Ranger and Benjen and Ned talk when they can and they both know what Jon will face. Jon has a gentler touch. He'll lose that. He isn't sure what to think about it. Winterfell will never be the same though. Bran will never walk and Sansa will want to stay and Arya will be even less a lady (he's not sorry for that, she reminds him of Lyanna, maybe if Lyanna had been allowed to wield a blade...no, the past is the past, he won't let it turn him into Robert.)   
  
He misses Cat. Misses the copper of her hair, her easy smiles, the way she is never afraid to speak her mind; she claims she still feels as though she's an outsider but there's more of the North in her than she knows, that steely determination that can see her through it. Cat who brought smiles and the sun to Winterfell and birthed him five beautiful children and brought a joy to his life he never thought he would have for himself.  
  
But joy and honour never made for bedfellows. Honour conquers all, drives a man to battle. Wielded poorly it can justify all ends. Cat's words sting like the morning winds after a night wrapped in warm furs and her embrace as he travels with the King's retinue. As well they might, he knows she had the truth of it but honour demanded that he go, that he try to do right by his friend and brother in all but blood. What could he have done in Winterfell? Watched one son ride off to Wall to be among men who knew nothing of honour and were seldom there out of choice? Sat by her side as she went pale and stiff by Bran's bed, turning into a statue fit to join the rest in the crypts? How could he watch his boy, his sure-footed little thing lie dead to the world? Would he have let Robb try to shoulder the burdens because his father was there in body but not in mind and spirit? What would he have told Sansa and Arya and Rickon to put their fears to bed?   
  
Reason, or sense as Cat would put it, is not a bedfellow of honour either. Reason appeals to honour but honour will be damned if it listens.


End file.
